Virginia Beach Rock-n-Roll 1/2 Marathon Race Report

My family had a great time at VA Beach. The weather was beautiful all weekend. We stayed in a cabin at First Landing State Park. It was a nice cozy cabin set in a maritime forest along the chesapeake bay. Spanish moss hung on the branches of the crooked trees. Except for a few inches of water standing in the barbeque grill, there was no sign that a hurricane had gone thru the area just a day before.We hung out on the beach, hiked on trails, met my neice for dinner and played games in the cabin. And of course, the whole reason for the trip was my race…

Race Results
Finish Time: 1:59:32, pace of 9:08
Division Place (Females age 40-44): 130th out of 1134 = top 11.4%
All females: 1110th out of 9126 = top 12%
Overall place: 3433rd out of 16170 finishers = top 21%
Official Splits: http://tinyurl.com/egfug

How the Day Went
My goal for the race was to do it in 1:55, which is a pace of 8:45. I picked that goal because that’s the pace I’d need for a marathon to qualify for Boston. My track workouts were on par with this goal, but my tempo runs were not, so I wasn’t sure if I could do it. My plan was to follow the 1:55 pace leader (a pace leader is a runner who carries a sign with an expected finish time on it). If I was struggling the first mile, then I’d planned to back off my pace and adjust my goal.

I woke up a little before 5am, and had a bowl of oatmeal with some walnuts mixed in. My teenage daughter signed up to be a ‘finish line’ volunteer at the race so she could earn service hours for school. We had to get her there at 5:30 am for volunteer check in. Race started at 7:00 am.

After getting her settled, my husband took me over to the race start line and dropped me off. He then went back to the cabin to catch some more shut eye. How lucky he was that he got to go back to bed. Perhaps I should say smart, as I’m the one who got myself into this crazy racing life.

I had about 45 minutes to wait for the start. I grabbed a couple bottles of water to pre-hydrate and then got in the porta potty line. I know from last year that the porta potty line takes forever at this race! While waiting in line I stretched and drank water. I downed a Chocolate Gu at 7am. It took about 50 minutes to get thru the line. While waiting in line, I missed the Hoyt’s start in the wheelchair division; and missed the professional women’s start. 🙁 I also missed my wave start, meaning I missed the 1:55 pace leader. Crud, I was on my own for pacing…I wished I had strapped on that pace wristband that was in my gear bag!

I was wearing my heart rate monitor, and I knew from training I could sustain 155 bpm for a long workout. I knew from my 5mile race in July that 167bpm would be a struggle. The first quarter mile or so, I was like a sardine packed among a mass of other runners, and couldn’t run very fast. Then the pack thinned out and I was able to dart in and around people. Since I started out in a slower wave, I decided to make a game of passing people. I would pick out someone in the crowd, give them a nickname like “ponytail girl” or “tatoo man”… and then work hard to pass that person. It was not too diffucult to pass people for the first 8 miles. I felt good, my breathing was controlled, and my heart rate stayed in the 160-165 range.

Click image to enlarge

At each mile marker, I did the math in my head to make sure I was below a pace of 9 minutes per mile. I was doing okay until about mile 8, where my pace started slipping. Also, at that point, I think I had caught up to people about my speed so it got alot harder to pass. Maybe it was fatigue…dunno. I kept up my passing game anyway, until mile 10. My breathing and heart rate were still controlled, but I definitely felt I was working harder.

I downed a Gu at the 5k mark and the 10k mark. I refilled my 20 oz palm holder water bottle at those points. (I decided to bring that along because I much prefer to sip water than to down cupfuls of it.) I was short one Gu pack, so at the 10 mile mark, I refilled with a 50-50 mix of water and amino vital. I tried to do the water refills as quickly as possible so as not to lose time. I took the lid off the bottle, grabbed cups from the volunteers and poured the water into my bottle, all while still running.

At mile 10, I picked up my pace, or so I thought. I was working ALOT harder – breathing harder, and my heart rate was way up. I thought I was going faster, but I wasn’t passing people any more, and looking at my split times, I really wasn’t going any faster. The last 2 miles down the “boardwalk” (made of cement) was just as grueling as it was last year. No joint pain this time, thankfully, but my quads were trashed and every step hurt like hell. There was a huge statue of King Neptune on the beach that I could see in the distance. I thought that was almost the end, but as I approached , I saw that was only mile 12. One more mile to ignore the pain and dig in deeper. I knew I wasn’t going to make my goal of 1:55, but I kept up my hard effort anyway to get the best time I could. Crossing the finish line, my only feeling was relief that it was over.

Maybe all long distance running races are like this (triathlons aren’t). After you cross the finish line, all kinds of volunteers are handing you stuff and taking care of you. It’s so wonderful…The first thing they hand you is a water bottle. Then a towel to dry the sweat off your brow. Then they give you a medal. The guy who gave me my medal had a huge smile, put the medal around my neck, and said “Congratulations, you did great!”. I felt like I was standing on the block at the olympics receiving a gold medal. Then there’s people handing out gatorade, ice bags, bananas, oranges, power bars, pretzels and even beer. As I staggered through all the finish line stuff, I kept looking for my daughter. I finally spotted her at the Spenco booth, where she was handing out the free sandals. I got in her line even though it was longer than the other lines. She looked so grown up and was doing a great job smiling at people as they got their free sandals. She put in 7 hours that day!

Even tho I didn’t make my goal, seeing my official results and how I fared against other racers, I’m really happy with my time! Top 11% in my age group is the best I’ve ever done in any race! I guess you have to be top 10% to be good enough to qualify for Boston. I can’t imagine going 26.2 miles at a faster pace than I ran yesterday. Then again, a few years ago, I couldn’t have imagined myself running 13.1 miles – period!

They say that if you start running after age 40, it takes 7 years to reach your peak. I figure I’m only 2 years into it 🙂